More than ten years of stability : Entrenched coterie
- Sangai Express Editorial :: October 04, 2013 -

Political stability. It cuts both ways.

While stability comes with the understanding of a Government firmly in place, enabling it to pursue its policies and programmes without any hindrances from within and without, on the other hand it can also mean the entrenchment of a coterie or a clique of people, who enjoy political patronage and whose sole agenda is to serve the interest of the political party in power and not the interest of the people.

Stability can mean governance yet it can also mean giving birth to a class of people where their writs run unbridled as long as they manage the art of cosying up to the political leadership by any means and this is saying something a lot.

It was under the vision to stop the culture of party hopping and destabilising Government that the Congress party under the late Rajiv Gandhi first came out with the anti-defection Bill wherein it was stipulated that it should take at least one third of the members of a political party to switch side.

That this did not have the desired impact was there for all to see and then came the stringent anti-defection Bill passed by the then BJP led NDA Government in 2002, when Atal Behari Vajpayee was at the helm of affairs. Before the NDA version of the anti-defection Bill came into force, stability was a term that was unheard of in Manipur, with not a single Chief Minister able to complete a full term in office.

In fact it was something like a circus with MLAs grouping together and party hopping like there was no tomorrow. Situation came to such a pass that Manipur scripted some sort of a history when the Opposition bench had only one member in the person of the veteran Congress leader, Rishang Keishing in 2001.

This was before the June 18 Uprising and in as much as the protest of the people was against the Bangkok Declaration which inserted the clause, "without territorial limits" in the cease fire pact between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM), it was also an outpouring of people's frustration against the musical chair game played by the political leaders then.

Political leaders flying to Delhi and setting up camps to demand the removal of a Chief Minister was the norm then and stability was Greek then.

After the BJP led NDA Government's version of 2002 came into force, Manipur's honeymoon with stability started.

Without taking away any credit from Mr Okram Ibobi Singh, it may however not be altogether wrong to say that it was primarily due to this Act that he managed to become the first Chief Minister of Manipur to complete a full term in office.

For more than ten years, Manipur has experienced political stability and there is no reason why this will not touch the 15 years mark.

Remarkable is a term that comes to mind, but on the flip side it also stands true that this stability has given birth to a coterie or a clique of people, who have managed to make their way into all the important Government institutions and in the process turn them into some sort of their personal fiefdom.

The rot runs deep. Name it and all important Government institutions or departments are now being run and controlled by those who have managed to fine tune the art of cosying up to the political leadership.

Obviously there is a price to be paid for this, and the price is the complete lack of governance and institutional collapse.

Coveted posts or high profile postings effected not on the basis of competency or seniority but on how one manages to make one's way into the inner circle of the power brokers and the systemic failure is there for all to see and hear.

The flip side of stability, it is this and yet it is something more than this.

It is about promoting one's selfish interest at the expense of the State and the people.

Facts which lend credence to the observation that stability cuts both ways.